HUNTINGTON BEACH : 2 Realtors Elected to Planning Panel

After a year in which the Planning Commission was headed by its most militant environmentalist, commissioners have elected two conservative realtors to become their new leaders.

Commissioner Kirk Kirkland, owner of a real estate brokerage firm and a former president of the Huntington Beach-Fountain Valley Board of Realtors, was unanimously appointed the commission’s chairman. He succeeds Geri Ortega, an outspoken slow-growth advocate who frequently clashed with developers during commission meetings.

Jan Shomaker, another commissioner who formerly led the Huntington Beach-Fountain Valley Board of Realtors, was unanimously elected vice chairwoman.

Kirkland had been vice chairman during Ortega’s yearlong leadership tenure. He said he doubts that his replacing Ortega will affect the commission’s decisions. The commission’s new members, Susan Newman and Roy Richardson, will have a much greater impact than will his chairmanship, he said.

But Kirkland said he hopes that through his leadership the commission can speed its decisions and minimize confrontations between commissioners and city staff officials, developers or other speakers at the meetings.

“There’s been an awful lot of excessive criticism of staff . . . and a lot of baiting of people at the podium during public hearings,” he said. “I’d like to see that brought to a halt. If we have a problem with staff, the commissioner who has the problem needs to deal with it on a one-on-one basis. The council chambers is not the place to do it.”

Ortega said she considers Kirkland’s promotion to chairman “very healthy” for the commission.